


let the video stop, let me play it again

by anonymousAlchemist



Series: External Phylacteries [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: As One Does, F/M, and also using the word bonesona, i dont know how to explain this one other than to say its about love and beginnings, or: a nonlinear love story, the first paragraphs are on tumblr if this seems familiar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-14 04:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11775177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousAlchemist/pseuds/anonymousAlchemist
Summary: He didn't have any instructions for if he found a non-sentient skeleton. The coin had mentioned that he might find a skeletal lich, a glowing figure in a red robe, a being made of ethereal light — the coin had waxed rhapsodic, actually, and Barry had thought it a little overdone. He wondered what the woman was like, that his other-self would be so moved as to attempt poetry.But there's no woman. Just a skeleton in a dusty red cloak, with its hands wrapped around an umbrella.





	let the video stop, let me play it again

**Author's Note:**

> erm. this ones a bit weird, and temporally whack. enjoy!

 4. 

He didn't have any instructions for if he found a non-sentient skeleton. The coin had mentioned that he might find a skeletal lich, a glowing figure in a red robe, a being made of ethereal light — the coin had waxed rhapsodic, actually, and Barry had thought it a little overdone. He wondered what the woman was like, that his other-self would be so moved as to attempt poetry.

But there's no woman. Just a skeleton in a dusty red cloak, with its hands wrapped around an umbrella. A lifeless object. The coin mentioned the umbrella, called it a weapon — something that devoured its foes. Might be useful, Barry thinks. Even if the woman is dead. And he feels like he should be sad about that fact? The voice from Barry's coin, his voice, had cared about her a lot. He thinks. There's a cadence in the voice, a tenderness when he talks about her. He calls Lup important, from the coin, and Barry knows that he isn't a liar, and that if he thinks she's important, she must be. What is she to him? The coin never mentions.

Barry figures he should probably take the umbrella.

Before he can, Merle reaches out and snatches it by the handle. It flares with magic, and Merle's quickly flung back, hitting the wall with an audible thump. Barry winces. Taako laughs, not unkindly. Magnus chuckles, but helps Merle up.

Barry reconsiders picking up the umbrella. But, no. It's important. The woman who is a skeleton was important. He gets the feeling that his coin-self would be pissed if he _didn't_ take the umbrella.

He reaches for it hesitantly, and wraps his fingers around the handle all at once, bracing himself. But nothing happens. Barry lets go of a breath he didn't know he was holding.

The handle of the umbrella is warm, not just warm, but warm like a hearth, like the bright heat of a campfire, like a hand clutched in his own. It feels like coming home.

The umbrella pulses with magic twice in his hands, as if to say hello. He smiles. He's not sure why.

"Jeez," Merle says. "How come it likes you?"

Barry shrugs. "No idea."

 

1.

Barry doesn’t mean to go to the party. It’s a Thursday, he’s TA-ing tomorrow morning at ten, he’s not twenty anymore. He can’t screw around like this. Besides. It’s all undergrads, probably, and that’s not interesting. His roommate wheedles him into it, “C’mon, Bluejeans, it’ll be fun. I don’t want to go alone,” and Barry says “Okay,” cause Misha is six years younger than him and Barry’s always been responsible.

The party is already in full swing by the time they get there, music throbbing through the open basement doorway of the house. They’re both pleasantly tipsy, having shared half a handle of something Misha got from a friend of a friend on the walk over. It gives them the confidence to walk into a room filled with strangers. Barry hates meeting new people. He’s never any good at it. He makes a beeline for the drinks, which are down to the dregs of a plastic bottle of rum and a mere whisper of cheap vodka. But beggars can’t be choosers.

Barry reaches for the handle and his hand doesn’t meet sticky plastic but another hand. He looks up. There’s a woman there, the most beautiful elf that he’s ever laid eyes on. And, well, all elves are beautiful, all liquid eyes and tender mouths and laughs like bells, all with a way of movement that makes them seem like they’re constantly dancing. But this elf, well, she’s lovely. This elf has an undercut. She’s got smudged lipstick like she’s just been kissing somebody, or maybe just wiping her mouth. Her hand is hot against his own and he lifts it.

“Shit, sorry,” he says. She waves a hand, swaying a bit. He realizes she’s obviously drunk.

“It’s cool, it’s cool. Haven’t seen you around,” the beautiful elf says, and squints at him. “Y’don’t look like you usually come to these things, m’guy. You good?”

“I-I’m good,” Barry says. “I don’t, really. Come to these things, I mean.”

“Figured as much,” the woman says. She pauses. “Y’wanna get outta here?”

“Out of here?” he repeats.

“Yeah,” she says, “Outta here! M’names Lup, what’s yours?”

They’re both shouting to get heard over the music.

“Er,” Barry says, drawing back,  and it’s not a no, it’s just surprise that this woman, this fantastic woman with smudged makeup is asking him about himself. Before he can answer, a voice from behind him says, “Lulu, is this guy bothering you? Cause if he is, lemme handle it, cause you _know_ y’don’t need to be sent to the Dean again for setting another asshole on fire.”

Barry blinks as the mirror image of Lup shoulders his way through the crowd, only no, it’s not completely identical, the man has long hair and bubblegum-pink lipstick and is a man. “Hi,” he says.

“That was once, ‘ko,” Lup says.

“Twice!” her mirror image says, shaking his head, and Lup rolls her eyes.

“Alan doesn’t count,” she argues. “But okay, _hachi-machi,_ I’m going, I’m going. If anything, I was bothering _him._ See-ya, stranger. _”_

She waves at him, languid and loose, and pulls her brother away into the crowd, disappearing. Barry realizes she’s taken the bottle with her. Well, damn.  

Misha shoulders his way to the table. “Barry! So that’s where you were,” he says. “Y’want the rest of this?” He gestures to the handle of mystery alcohol that they’ve been drinking, and Barry says “Sure, yeah.”

The next morning, Barry wakes up five minutes before class with a pounding headache, pukes in the toilet, and sprints across campus. He doesn’t remember most of last night, but he supposes someone would tell him if anything particularly memorable happened. 

 

8.

“So, lemme get this straight. We won’t remember anything in our alive-bodies, but our bonesonas are being hunted by Lucy and probably the Raven Queen.”

“Yup.”

“Shit my guy, you’ve been between a rock and a hard place for a while now, huh? That’s. That sounds pretty rough. How’ve you managed?”

“Remember the Coin of Echoes that I was playing with back on, shit, must have been thirty cycles ago?”

“Oh! You’re leaving instructions for yourself, aren’t you? Clever boy, that’s real smart, Barry.”

“Thanks, hon. We should record a new message for both of us, now that you’re back. Um. Have I mentioned how, um, how glad I am that you’re back? Also how angry I am that you left?”

“...Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. This is a conversation for later, I think.”

“When we have more time, Barr. I promise — also, hey, I’ve been thinking. If Luce erased me from existence, how much am I gonna remember ‘bout me?”

“Oh, _fuck.”_

“Ch’yeah. Could make things more complicated. Got any ideas on how it’ll work?”

“N-no, gods, I didn’t even think about that. And ‘Creesh is the one who knows how all of this works, damn, damn, _damn_.”

“Woah, hey babe. Don’t beat yourself up about this, just means we’re gonna have to play this one by ear, do some improv. We’re good at improv.”

“ _You’re_ good at improv.”  

“ _We’re_ good at improv. It’ll be alright.”

“Will it? Gods, Lup, I’ve been doing this for so long, and I was just about to give up, and…”

“Barry? Are you alright?”

“I, oh, it’s stupid. I don’t want to forget you again. I hate forgetting you.”

“Well, we’ll have forgotten each other together. I hate forgetting me, too.”

“Lu, don’t joke. Maybe you should, I dunno, stay behind. What if something happens? What if the amnesia thing really screws you over?”

“I’m not staying back here while you’re off fighting, nosirree. You’re stuck with me, Barold. ‘Til double-death do us part, right? We won’t know how it happens until it happens.”

“I. I just don’t want to lose you again.”

“You won’t. I don’t wanna lose you either.”

 

5.

Phandolin burns.

Barry Bluejeans dies.

The umbrella burns to a crisp in his hands, and there is nothing, and nothing, and —

 

2.

The first time Barry remembers meeting Lup, she’s wearing a crisp red jacket just beginning to crease at the elbows, a red cloak streaming cape-like from her shoulders. Barry’s on his way to pick up his official IPRE mission jacket when he sees her and blurts out “You got both?”

Gods. ‘You got both,’ he asks, before he says hello, before he asks her name, before he introduces himself to her because it looks like they’re going to be living together for two months now, hello, nice to meet you, my name is Barry Bluejeans, before all of that, he asks how she managed to get both articles of clothing. What’s wrong with him? She stops walking.

“I asked, boy-o,” she says. “They’ll give you both if you ask.”

“Oh,” Barry says, because it had never occurred to him. “Thanks.”

“Ch’yeah, no probs,” she says. “Oh shit, you’re on the mission, too?”

“Yeah. I’m Barry. Barry Bluejeans,” he says.

“Lup. Lup Taaco,” she says, parodying him, and if the name sounds familiar, then well, Barry can’t place it.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Barry says, and she smiles at him and it sends a flutter down his chest and oh, that’s no good, he can’t afford to have a crush on his coworker he’s going to be living with for the next two months. And this is the memory that stays with him, Lup dressed all in red, Lup smiling.

“You too, babe,” she says, “A’ight, I gotta bounce, but I’ll see you at the press conference!”

She starts walking away, and Barry watches her leave, cloak fluttering like a flame in the wind.

 

11. 

BB: Your name is Barry Bluejeans. You are afraid of the dark —

[Soft laughter]

BB: Stop laughing, -͞_̶͠͏, you _know_ that! Uh, your favorite thing in the world is swimming in very cold water on a very hot day, and you get ill when you drink milk or anything with milk in it. Your - your father Gregor died when you were too young to know him. Your mother, Marlene, had soft gray hair when you were born, and was the most wonderful woman who ever lived.

[Murmurs. A deep breath.]

BB: You remember them, but _you_ have forgotten so much. And uh, the woman who is next to me right now and should be sitting next to you has forgotten even more. I, I don’t know how lucid you’re going to be, hon, but -͞_̶͠͏-̶̨͡, I know you probably can’t remember anything, and I just want you to know that you are, so, so loved, and people care about you, so much. Um, -͞_̶͠͏-̶̨͡, do you want to take over for this?

-͞_̶͠͏: Aw, babe. You’re such a sap. Okay, future-me, I don’t know how much o’ this is gonna get through, and if you can only hear static, then well, fuck me, I don’t have any proof to give you. But, okay, your name is -̵͘͜_̢͠-̴͘_̡͏_̵̕-͘*̨.̴̷͝.̛, you’ve got a -͢_̶̨-̷͝__-̛*̨͝.̶.̕͟-͠-͝͞_̡͠,͞,͝,̨͢, who’s -̶̢_̛͠-̕͏̧__-͏̛*̨̛.̴̴.̸--҉̴_͟,͝,͡,^͜͠^̛,,͠.̧҉.̕̕͡, , you -̶̨_-__̢̢͟-*͏̷̡.̵̷.͜-̡͠͝-̵_͢͝,̛͢͟,͝,̕^^̴͞͞,,and the -͟͠_̢-͘_̵̡_̴͞-̴*͏̶̨.̨̡.̛҉--͜͢_̕͜,,̴,͏͜^̕͝^̵̕,̕,̛͜.̶̵͟͠,͢҉.̷̛.̴͏.=̛̛͟_͟=̷̧͡=̢-≠=-̡*̡*҉*̧̕*t. Nobody remembers you right now, -͞_̶͠͏-̶̨͡, , and you don’t remember you right now, but babe, you care about things. You’re a hero. You and Barry are both heroes, and—

[She pauses for a moment]

— And the man sitting next to you, he loves you, even though he doesn’t remember it right now.

BB: [Surprised] I thought we weren’t going to mention that?

-͞_̶͠: We need to give us something to fight for, Barold. There’s an absence in your chest, isn’t there, -͞_̶͠͏-̶̨͡, ? You know you’re supposed to care about somebody, multiple somebodies, but I bet you can’t remember who. There are people out there you care for, -͞_̶͠͏-̶̨͡, , and who care for you, people who know you to the bottom of your soul, and I know that probably seems strange to you, but I promise it’s the truth. Barry’s one of them, and you love him, and he loves you.

BB: Uh, what -͞_̶͠͏-̶̨͡,  just said. -͞_̶͠͏-̶̨͡, , I, I know this doesn’t mean anything coming from me right now, but the man sitting next to you, you can trust him. -͞_̶͠͏-̶̨͡, 's right. He loves you more than life, even if he doesn’t remember it. And Barry —

-͞_̶͠: _Such_ a sap.

BB: -͞_̶, do you want them to think we’re for real, or not?

-͞_̶͠: I’d argue that this makes us seem more real, babe.

BB: Well, if you say so, hon. But Barry, right now, in this moment, you feel a dull weight in your chest. It’s the weight of a love that defined and redeemed you but you’ve forgotten who that weight belongs to. Barry, I’m _you_ , just moments ago and I remember who that weight belongs to, and I can help you remember it too. Both of you.

-͞_̶͠: Trust each other, you two.

BB: We’re better together than alone —

-͞_̶͠: — and we’re going to get our family back.

 

7.

The sky above Phandolin is clear and sunny and blue, all of it blue. Phandolin no longer exists. In its place lies a smooth circle of black glass, reflecting the blue up and up and up.

Two figures in red robes hover far above the earth. If one were to look closer, one would see that they're locked in an embrace, arms around each other, skeletal claw and illuminated hand clutching each other. If one were to look, they would avert their eyes. Love is private.

"I missed you so much," Barry says.

He'd be crying, if he had eyes to cry with. Lup holds on to him, and he's glad they're both dead right now, so that they can touch one another, that he can feel her hands on his metaphysical form.

"I'm sorry," she says, "I didn't mean to be gone so long, babe, or to get trapped. It was stupid. I shouldn't have left." And Barry knows that's hard for Lup, to admit that she is ever wrong. She rests her head on his shoulder, and he cards a hand through her hair.

"I told you the umbrella was a bad idea," he says.

"It was pretty cool, though," Lup says, a little wistfully. She raises her head, breaks the hug, and looks him up and down. She tilts her head downward to see the plane of flat glass that lies beneath them. She looks back at Barry, frowning.

"Barry, what the fuck is going on? Not that I'm not happy to see you, babe, but why are you in your bonesona? Where are we? What just got glassed?"

Barry sighs, or does the skeletal equivalent, a heaving of the ribcage and a sagging of shoulders.

"It's. A long story."

  
9.

Barry wakes up slow, and then all at once, a sharp inhale, a shutter-stop opening of the eyes. The room does not swim into focus. Where are his glasses? What was he doing last night? Is he, oh gods he is, he's naked. That's. That's great. Not again, he thinks. He had sworn off this sort of thing after his third year of undergrad, mostly.

There is an elf woman standing over him, her blurry outline close enough to mostly make out. A white half-moon in her face-shape. A smile?  

"Oh, fuckin' excellent babe, you're awake."

Babe? Oh gods, what were they doing last night, did they sleep together? Did they have sex in one of the more esoteric labs at the university and then fall asleep?

"Uh, yes?" he says. "Who are you?"

The elf shrugs.

"Well shit, my man, I was hoping you could tell me. "

 

6.

Here is what the moment of death feels like: First it hurts, and then it doesn’t.

Here is what the moment of death feels like: Oh, here is what I have been missing, here are the moth-eaten scraps of my heart stitched together, here is the mapping of love over time, here are sundrenched afternoons and crying in the shower and sitting together under fireworks. Here is the repetition of day after day blooming flower-like in my mind, here is the weight of my heart understood. Hello again, how could I forget you, and you, and you.

 

10. 

The elf hands him his glasses. He puts them on, and she resolves into a beautiful woman wearing a red cloak. She's easily one of the prettiest people he's ever seen, Barry thinks, she could be a model, probably, she could be on the cover of those magazines that his mother buys at the drugstore sometimes. Oh. She's not wearing anything under the cloak. Oh. Oh boy. Wow. That's a lot of skin.

"Did we, uh, did we," Barry stutters. "Did we do, you know, last night, or?"

"Did we fuck, you mean?" she asks. "No idea, babe. I mean, I woke up in this fine birthday suit, and you were also starkers, so if you wanna put two and two together, well, maybe?"

"Oh no," Barry says. She laughs.

"Well I think I look pretty good, but I guess tall, blonde, and trans isn't your type, then." And it's got an edge of hurt to it, a hurt honed to a razor's edge.

"No, you're gorgeous," Barry blurts out. The elf blinks.

"Oh, well, thanks m'dude. I knew that."

"Okay," Barry says awkwardly. "That's good?"

She laughs at him, again. He blushes, and gets to his knees. There's a pile of his clothes at the foot of the lab table he's lying on. It's probably his clothing, or a passable simulacrum. Jeans and a white t-shirt, neatly stacked and badly folded.

"You can have my shirt, if you want," Barry says.

"Much appreciated, my guy," she says.

"Sure," Barry says, and reaches for his stuff. Something glints from between the folds of his shirt. He hesitates. Looks closer.

Someone has left a gold coin on his shirt.

He picks it up cautiously, and springs back as it crackles to life with noise. The elf woman leans over him.

"Whatcha got there?" she says.

"I don't know," Barry replies, and the coin begins to speak.

 

7. 

"She erased you," Barry says, and his voice would shake with anger but he has no endocrine system right now and the physical reactions of his mental state do not compute in this form. "I don't know what she was thinking. I think, I think she erased _everything_ , using Fisher. When I'm alive, when I've got a human body, I don't remember anything. I don't remember the mission, or the crew, or the Hunger, or you. It's just static." And his voice does not waver on the last word because it can't.

"Oh, babe," Lup says. "That's fuckin' awful."

"Completely fucking awful," Barry admits. "I, I think the others are okay? I remember catching up with them while I was human, just now, and they seemed okay, physically, at least. I didn't really ask. We were kind of busy."

"What were you trying to do?"

"At this point? We were trying to get the Gauntlet off of that guy, Gundren, along with this orc woman who I think is working for 'Creesh?"

"Working for 'Creesh?" Lup repeats, surprised. "What's Lucy doin' with minions?"

"I don't know what she’s doing, though she's built a _second moon,_ if you can believe that," Barry says, and if it comes out a bit of a whine, well, he's earned it.

"Lucy was always one for secrets," Lup says, and it's sad and fond and _pissed_. "I guess we gotta sweep in and fix everything like the big damn heroes we are."

She makes everything sound simple, Barry thinks. For Lup, there is only action and reaction and he loves that about her, her opinion like a corrective lens over his own indecision. Lup has conviction like a forest fire, clearing new ground for growth.

"Okay. Let me tell you everything," Barry says.

 

3. 

The planet is something out of a storybook. It's covered in deserts, mostly, which silver caravans criss-cross in long arcs from one stronghold to another. The heat of the day leaves you drenched in sweat, and the night is all plunging temperatures and starlight. This is a world of hewn stone and tents, like the one that Barry and Lup are reclining under, playing with magic trinkets that they've made in their spare time. Little devices cobbled together from the magics of seventy-some different planets. Things that could be useful.

Tonight, they’re cuddled together on this world’s equivalent of a couch, with a wealth of blankets to ward off the chill. Barry holds a large gold coin between his fingers.

"You hold the face down to record, and then after you've recorded everything, you press the castle to lock it in," Barry says. "When I touch it again, I hear the message from the top."

"That's a neato trick," Lup says. "Could be handy for a grift."

"You can say it's kind of useless," Barry says, self deprecating. "Won't hurt my feelings."

"No! It's very cool," Lup says, turning her face toward him. "Can I see it, babe?"

Barry hands the coin to her. She holds it to her mouth and presses the face. She whispers into it, and giggles as she clicks the castle, her mouth half-hidden behind the metal disc. She passes the coin back to Barry, and he takes it from her fingers. As it brushes his skin, Lup's voice rings out from it.

"Boner," it says, trailing off into laughter. Barry snorts.

"Real mature, Lu.”

“You know you love it,” Lup says.

“I do,” Barry says, because the easiest way to catch Lup off guard is with sincerity. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she says, like it’s a surprise, as if she hasn’t said it to him a thousand times before. Barry doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of hearing it.

He won’t have to, he thinks, they’ve got all the time in the world.

 

12. 

The coin shuts off with a click.

Barry hesitantly picks it up, but nothing else happens. It had promised more instructions later. He’s sweating. Who is he, that he made something like this? Why doesn’t he remember? He turns to the woman.

The woman whose name is static is staring at him. She’s wearing his shirt now, had put it on with shaking hands as she listened to her voice spill static and reassurance, while he listened to his voice tell him everything he wanted to hear. It was uncomfortable to hear his soul laid bare with her in the room. Barry suspects she feels the same.

She’s sitting crosslegged on the bed, and he wonders if they’ve ever done this before, her in his shirt and nothing else, sitting on a bed, him sitting beside her in nothing but his underwear. Barry wonders how that felt. He had sounded so in love, from the coin. Barry knows himself, or thinks he does, and he knows how love sounds on his lips. He remembers his mother talking about his father, even years after his death. He should put on his pants. Barry can’t stop staring at her.

“You love me, huh,” the woman says, voice steady.

“I think I did” Barry says, because she deserves something honest. “I think I could,” and that’s the truth of it, she’s magnetic and all elves are beautiful but he can’t stop looking at her and it’s not about beauty, he thinks.

“I don’t,” she says, pausing, and Barry’s heart sinks for a second. “I don’t like trusting people, I don’t think. I don’t know what I don’t like,” she says, simple statement of fact that tears at Barry’s chest. She shrugs.

“But that sounded like me, whoever I am, and I think it sounded like you mean a lot to me, m’guy, and that we have something important to do.”

“I wish I remembered you,” Barry says.

“I wish I remembered me, too!” The woman laughs, and Barry laughs too, and he wishes that he could remember all the times they have laughed together. It’s ridiculous! They’re both half naked and sitting in a cave and a coin has told them that they are in love and have amnesia and an important mission to complete, a mission that will culminate with their memories returned. Barry wants those memories back.

The woman stops laughing, and takes a deep breath.

“A’ight. Feelings time over. First a name, and some clothes, and then we save the world,” she says, and grins at him like they’re co-conspirators, him and this half-dressed no-name woman sitting in a cave, as if saving the world is as easy as speaking.

“Okay,” Barry says, heart doing a flip-flop. “Me and you. Together.”  

**Author's Note:**

> im @[anonymousalchemist](http://anonymousalchemist.tumblr.com/), author's notes posted [here](http://anonymousalchemist.tumblr.com/post/164068076757/liner-notes-let-the-video-stop-let-me-play-it) and an unstaticked version of barry & lup's coin monologue is [here](http://anonymousalchemist.tumblr.com/post/164104961947/unstaticked-lup-n-barry-recording-from-let-the)!
> 
> yeah i mean slide me a kudos or leave a comment if ya wanna! that'd make my day! or don't! you have free will! thanks for reading!


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